Ronda Rousey finding balance between UFC and Hollywood

UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey talks to the media not only about her upcoming fight in UFC 170 but her burgeoning film career.
Hans Gutknecht — Staff Photographer

Ronda Rousey wants to make one point clear.

She is a fighter, not an actress.

Rousey will be defending her UFC women’s bantamweight championship against Sara McMann on Feb. 22 at UFC 170 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, but it’s hard not to make note of her second career in front of the camera.

It’s easy for Rousey, however, to shoot down talks of any pending retirement in search of the higher dollar.

“Well, I’m a fighter. I enjoy fighting. I was doing judo for a decade and a half for pretty much no money,” the 2008 Olympic judo bronze medalist said in front of a horde of media Monday at Glendale Fighting Club in Glendale.

“If money was really what was important for me, I might be a stockbroker right now. I just wanted to have enough money to be able to do what I enjoy for a living. And right now, the main thing that I enjoy is fighting. I enjoy it more, I think, when I get to do it in more of a cyclical fashion.”

Most important for Rousey and her team is establishing a balancing act between the two worlds — beating up other women in the UFC and becoming a global superstar, and her newest endeavor of acting and pretending to beat people up and becoming a Hollywood star.

Two weeks ahead of her fight with McMann, the worlds collided when Variety reported last week Rousey had signed a deal with Warner Bros. to appear in the “Entourage” movie and star in an adaptation of the Brad Thor bestseller “Athena Project.”

“Honestly, right now I don’t want to get too much into it. I want to keep my focus on the fight,” Rousey said. “I’m extremely excited about it, but it’s just, I don’t think it’s good for my health to really be getting into the movies right now. I need to focus on the fight.

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“That’s really what’s most important to me. Because I really feel as if my life is on the line every single time that I’m out there. So anything that would distract me from that, no matter how cool and amazing it is, I just can’t afford to give it too much of my attention right now.”

Brad Slater, Rousey’s agent with William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, said it was after Rousey had triumphed over Liz Carmouche a year ago at UFC 157 in the first women’s fight in UFC history that he sent her to 35 meetings around town. Slater said it was Rousey’s approach — including how upset she was the one and only time she was late — that signaled he had someone special.

“The obvious thing is, she’s an incredibly good-looking young woman, and that’s very obvious,” Slater said. “But to me, the first time I met her, her work ethic. It’s absolutely unparalleled. Just with some of the greatest actors that I’ve had the privilege to be around, she’s right up there. And she takes this side of the business when she’s in it as seriously as she takes her fighting.”

The acting gigs began to sprout in July when Sylvester Stallone took to Twitter to announce Rousey would appear in “The Expendables 3,” for which she spent eight weeks filming in Bulgaria. After that came a week in Atlanta for a role in “Fast & Furious 7.”

By chance, when Slater was discussing a female role for “Entourage” with client Jerry Ferrara, who portrayed Turtle in the HBO series, they knew who should get the part.

“We knew that this role was out there. I said to him, ‘Geez, Ronda would be amazing,’ ” Slater recalled. “He paused, he goes, ‘She would be amazing.’ And it kind of took on a life of its own.”

Slater said the producers and director Doug Elllin got on board and Greg Silverman, Warner Bros.’ president of creative development and worldwide production, signed off on it before asking, “What else could I be doing with her?”

That led to “Athena Project.” Slater sent the book to Rousey in Bulgaria.

Rousey said she consumed the novel, about four women who are part of an elite, top-secret, all-female counterterrorism unit, in 48 hours.

Most compelling was one particular character Thor had created.

“There were strange parallels. He never knew me and it was like he wrote this one character exactly for me,” Rousey said. “So we talked a little bit on the phone when I was in Bulgaria because I couldn’t take any meetings till I got back. I was going straight to camp, so there really was no way. So we talked about it and I was like, ‘I’m in. Let’s find a way to make this work.’ ”

Filming for “Entourage” starts in about a month in Los Angeles, which means Rousey’s training regimen won’t be disrupted after UFC 170.

Warner Bros. still is looking for a writer for “Athena Project,” so that project is a ways off. Rousey has to temper her enthusiasm for the book’s approach.

“It’s strong women in a real environment,” she said. “These women actually exist in real life. It’s not made up.”

What makes it an honor to represent Rousey, according to Slater, is that determination. She’s not being cast in movies because she’s a pretty face who happens to win fights.

“Anything this girl sets her mind to, it’s extraordinary,” Slater said. “If she’s not in the gym, she wants to be with an acting coach. She really, really works.

“She’s earned everything that she’s done. We don’t talk about it because the two worlds are so separate and I made a deal with her early on that we were gonna keep it that way. When she has to fight, she’s fighting.”